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Geoff: The island nation of
Haiti often makes headlines in
the midst of crisis.
But there's less attention to
the factors underlying its
status as the poorest nation in
the western hemisphere, and one
of the most unstable.
"The New York Times" has
conducted an unprecedented
investigation into those root
causes, and is putting a harsh
spotlight on Haiti's former
colonizer, France.
Ali rogin has more.
Ali: To learn more about this
sweeping investigation, I'm
joined by Catherine porter.
She's the Toronto bureau chief
of "The New York Times," and
she's been covering Haiti since
its devastating 2010 earthquake
and led the team that pored over
centuries old documents and
archives for this story.
Catherine, thank you so much for
joining us.
How did your team come up with
this idea?
Catherine: Well, as you
mentioned, I had been in Haiti
since 2010, and I think I've
been back more than 30 times,
and any journalist who spends
any time in Haiti asks the
question, like, why is it like
this?
Why is the poverty so bad?
Why is infrastructure so bad?
And why is it so so much worse
than other countries around it?
And the obvious answer is often
given as corruption, which is
true.
But reading a book on one of my
trips there, it mentioned this
thing called the Independence
debt that Haiti had paid to
France.
After winning its Independence,
it had then been forced to pay
in cash.
And it just stirred my... Like I
just planted a seed way back
then.
And I started looking for more
and more information about about
this.
Ali: Yeah.
Let's talk about how that
Independence debt came to be,
because I think, as some people
know, Haiti was founded by
former slaves.
They overthrew their French
colonial rulers in 1804, but not
long after that, they ended up
paying France.
Why?
Catherine: Yeah, and they called
it reparations, which is so mind
boggling now.
25 years at -- 1825, 21 years
after the first black nation of
the Americas was formed, a
battalion of French ships
arrived with a message from the
king, basically saying, either
you give us money or prepare for
war.
And at that time, Haiti had been
completely frozen out.
America, the United States would
not deal with it.
Britain wouldn't acknowledge it.
So facing war and desperate for
international recognition, the
president of Haiti at the time
agreed.
Ali: Right.
And you dove into how much those
so-called reparations would
equal in today's money.
You also looked into the value
that was lost to the Haitian
economy because of so much of
this money and the interest on
these payments going out of the
Haitian economy, not going to
Haitians.
Tell us about those figures.
Catherine: After we did all that
research, we collected the
figures and we were able to
extrapolate what the opportunity
cost was to Haiti.
So if Haiti hadn't grown, if its
economy had stayed as stagnant
as it had been throughout the
1800s, it would have meant it
would have added $21 billion
U.S. Dollars to the economy
today.
If the economy of Haiti had been
boosted and grown at the same
rate as the average rate of
Latin American countries around
it, it would have been a
staggering $115 billion.
Ali: Of course, the united
States also has a long and
sordid history with Haiti.
What did you find out about that
relationship?
Catherine: Well, you know, what
was really interesting is that
first you had these French
colonial masters and they held a
tight grip on Haiti long after
Independence.
And finally, the way that they
held on to the financial strings
of the country was through the
Haitian national bank.
And soon enough, American banks
took an interest in the Haitian
national bank because, as we
saw, increasingly more and more
bankers from around the world
saw that this was a place that
despite how poor it was, they
could get rich.
So we discovered that one of the
reasons the United States, you
know, invaded Haiti and occupied
it for a very long time,
starting in 1917, was because a
bank that is now known as
citigroup had really prodded the
state department to go in and
secure its interests in the
Haitian national bank.
And that then quickly developed
into a full fledged occupation.
So part of the impetus was
financial interests of wall
Street bankers.
Ali: Catherine porter with "The
New York Times," thank you so
much for joining us.
Catherine: Thank you so much for
having me.